Redemption After Codependency (Part 3 of The Boundaries Series)

By Sarah Steele

“Redemption After Codependency” is Part 3 of Sarah Steele’s three-part series on BOUNDARIES.

INSPIRED FROM HEBREWS 12

Read Part 1 here : Breakdowns, Boundaries, and a Better Interpretation — THE WAY BACK TO OURSELVES (thewayback2ourselves.com)

Read Part 2 here: The Addiction of People-Pleasing (Part 2 of The Boundaries Series) — THE WAY BACK TO OURSELVES (thewayback2ourselves.com)

ONE.

I stand in the doorway leading to my kitchen, old tears streaming fresh down my face. I think of the tasks of the day, the smiles I will have to dig out, the “how are you’s?” that will demonstrate I am a mutually benefiting member of society.

“My son, do not scorn the Lord’s discipline or give up when he corrects you.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts.”

I have lived through a trauma, though I don’t know it yet. I don’t have words for the abuse I have experienced, and I hadn’t had a word for the spiraling that keeps happening in my heart—until yesterday.

I replay the words of my counselor: “You are codependent, Sarah.” I am offended that there’s a term for my pain, that I am not so unique as to be an enigma to the experts. And I am offended that there is a clear definition for what I have walked through, and that I am in the company of many others.

“Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”

I was his child, and he disciplined me. Though I had been sinned against, I knew that I too had sinned, for this spiral I was careening through—though the most difficult yet—felt like the spiral I had traveled for years. I had lived with no regard for my own humanity, certainly with little care for my own God-given limitations, most definitely without a single boundary around my fragile life.

The needs of this world were so great and so pressing that I learned to deny my own. Someone else always has it worse and the joy of the Lord is my strength, so do I really need sleep?

Someone did have it worse than me. I gave and gave and gave; I “gave ‘til it hurt”—both them and me. I gave of my time and money, my energy and friendships, my house and my own body. I gave with an exterior smile, though on the inside, a slow seething had begun, a feeling that terrified me into believing that I was a horrible Christian and set me firmer on this path of I-will-serve-you-til-you’re-better destruction that I was now crumpled upon.

And now here I am, leaning against my kitchen door completely bankrupt, unable to serve one single person, not even my own children who will require sustenance yet this hour—something I simply cannot give—and so my husband will feed us all yet again, these first and second and third meals of the day. And I will somehow find a polite smile and try not to spill all over those whose paths I cross today, try not to cross many paths at all.

“Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers, and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness.”

I am weakened, but I am finally listening. I am listening to the “peace, be still” of Jesus’ commanding voice. I am listening to the grace that is sufficient for me, even when I am insufficient for life.

I am listening to my own desperate need for salvation and the One who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and who tells me that I cannot get to the Father through my good deeds and seemingly selfless acts but that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”

“All discipline seems painful at the time—not joyful. But later, it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.”

TWO.

Let’s skip ahead to a year after those tear-drenched days. My hand is shaking as I turn the door knob and let a small group of neighborhood moms and kids into my house. I am not ready to converse yet—the words still come in a torrent of incoherent pain—but I am convinced that God will bring healing again through his people.

So, I have invited this group over to sing hymns. The words to speak are provided on the page in front of me. My anxious face will study the wall as my trembling fingers stumble over the keys of the piano. This is my first step of re-entry. And this little step lasts a whole year of small “hellos” and sung truths and deeper breathing and slower living, until we are about to move to a neighboring state, seeking solace in the community of our extended family.

That final week of singing, I inhale and turn around on my piano bench, take my first deep look at the faces surrounding me. “I need to tell you something, girls. I need to tell you what God has done for me. And how you have been a part of the healing.”

“Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.”

THREE.

The move was everything it should have been, a true restarting. I rediscovered my old love for hosting and communing and truly knowing and being known, and suddenly I found myself scared—if this behavior had gotten me into trouble before, was I coming back for another round of pain?

If I had been a doer and a sharer before, was the antidote to be a sitter and observer now? Was my punishment to be the opposite of who I was? The Lord declared a resounding, “NO!” He had not made a mistake when he made me with a love for people and a love for words.

When he made me new, he didn’t give me a new personality. He gave me a new heart. I am still Sarah—his beautiful, extroverted, artistic, service-oriented creation. But now my gaze is much less out and much more up.